Garibaldi biscuit

Garibaldi biscuits.

The Garibaldi biscuit consists of currants squashed between two thin, oblong biscuits - a currant sandwich. In this recipe, it has elements in common with the Eccles cake.

Popular with British consumers as a snack for nearly 150 years, the Garibaldi biscuit is conventionally consumed with tea or coffee, into which it may be dunked in informal social settings. The biscuits also exist under different names in other countries including New Zealand.

Appearance

When bought in supermarkets in the UK (under several brands, including own label, all remarkably similar), Garibaldi biscuits usually come in four strips of five biscuits each. They have a golden brown, glazed exterior appearance and a moderately sweet pastry, but their defining characteristic is the generous layer of squashed fruit which gives rise to the colloquial names fly sandwiches, fly cemeteries, dead fly biscuits or squashed fly biscuits, because the squashed fruit resemble squashed flies.

History

The Garibaldi biscuit was named after Giuseppe Garibaldi, an Italian general and leader of the fight to unify Italy. During the war they had to use limited rations to prepare food, the result was a simple biscuit. Garibaldi made a popular visit to Tynemouth in England in 1854. It was first manufactured by the Bermondsey biscuit company Peek Freans in 1861 following the recruitment of one of the great biscuit makers of Scotland, John Carr. In the United States, the Sunshine Biscuit Company for many years made a popular version of the Garibaldi with raisins which it called "Golden Fruit". Sunshine was bought out by the Keebler Company which briefly expanded the line to include versions filled with other fruits. Plain chocolate covered and milk chocolate covered varieties have also been marketed in the past, but appear not to have been available for many years.

In popular culture

Garibaldis are the favourite tea biscuit of DCI Gene Hunt in the BBC shows Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes. They are also mentioned briefly in the prologue of Meera Syal's debut novel Anita and Me. Naomi Campbell, a character in British teen drama Skins, is quite fond of them. Inspector Japp offered one to Poirot in the episode in which Poirot's dentist was murdered. In the Doctor Who audio episode The Stuff of Nightmares, the fourth Doctor has a soggy Garibaldi. In Dinnerladies, Mr. Michael, the boss of HWD Components, is quite fond of them.

In the British sitcom Men Behaving Badly, Series 1, Episode 6, "My Brilliant Career" (1992), George (played by Ian Lindsay) tells his co-worker Anthea (played by Valerie Minifie), after Anthea hands him a package of biscuits, "I was wondering Anthea, maybe next week we could experiment, tentatively, with some Garibaldi."

In the British TV comedy The Young Ones, Series 2, Episode 1, "Bambi" (1984), a train driver (Alexei Sayle) being held up by Mexican bandits announces "It's quite interesting, you know, the number of biscuits that are named after revolutionaries. You've got your Garibaldi, of course, you've got your Bourbons, then of course you've got your Peek Freans Trotsky Assortment." [sings] "Revolutionary biscuits of Italy / Rise up out of your box! / You have nothing to lose but your wafers / Yum yum yum yum yum!"

Mexican Garibaldi biscuit

In Mexico, there is a popular muffin called Garibaldi, which is basically a vanilla sponge cake, covered with a light apricot spread, and then decorated with white sprinkles. Essentially the Garibaldi is part of the pan dulce tradition, thus it is consumed during the evening merienda, dunked in café con leche or hot chocolate.

See also

• Flies graveyard

External links

• Discussion of history of Garibaldi biscuits